[Evidence of new diagnostic and prognostic human astrocytoma tumor markers. Potential therapeutic applications. I].

This paper summarises different studies of our group whose aim to improve the accuracy of prognostic values for patients with astrocytic tumors. Our approach aims to optimise the conventional evaluation of astrocytic tumor malignancy by means of the quantification of conventional morphological criteria, and the production of biological variables related to DNA ploidy level. All these quantitative variables have been generated by means of computer-assisted microscopy and submitted to adapted data analysis methods. A series of 250 astrocytic tumors has been analysed, including 39 astrocytomas (AST), 47 anaplastic astrocytomas (ANA) and 164 glioblastomas (GBM) identified in accordance with the WHO classification. This classification distinguishes between tumor groups with relatively (AST), intermediary (ANA) and unfavorable (GBM) prognoses. However, it does not take into account the high degree of heterogeneity in each tumor group and may thus be poorly for individual case prediction. In this context, our approach has been able to identify new entities in the AST and ANA histological groups. These entities have established some reference points on the biological continuum according to the sequence AST-->ANA-->GBM and enable prognosis evaluation to be improved in astrocytic tumors.